In Hungary, upcoming elections could bring an end to Orban’s 16-year rule : NPR

ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:

Here in Hungary, voters will go to the polls tomorrow. At stake: the future of populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Europe’s longest-serving leader and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump. Here’s Orbán at a rally alongside Vice President JD Vance this week.

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PRESIDENT VIKTOR ORBÁN: (Through interpreter) Freedom-loving people cannot convert to liberal ideologies. The same thing will always happen. We will always be here, and they are nowhere, and Hungarian-American friendship shines again in its former glory.

SCHMITZ: Orbán is the architect of a style of governance known as illiberal democracy, a style in which key democratic institutions like the judiciary, the free press and civil society have been methodically weakened but citizens retain the right to vote. It’s a model that fascinates politicians around the world, including those in the Trump administration.

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JD VANCE: You’re fighting for your sovereignty, and I’m here because President Trump and I want you to succeed, and we’re fighting here with you.

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SCHMITZ: Almost every political poll taken before this election shows Orbán double-digits behind his opponent, an opponent whose meteoric rise now stands in the way of Orbán’s vision for Hungary. His name is Péter Magyar.

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PÉTER MAGYAR: (Non-English language spoken).

SCHMITZ: The 45-year-old politician left Orbán’s Fidesz party two years ago out of frustration with the party’s corruption. Soon after, he began posting videos on social media like this one, highlighting the squalid conditions in Hungarian hospitals.

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MAGYAR: (non-English language spoken).

SCHMITZ: “Everyone here,” says Magyar, “is waiting for the construction of a new modern hospital that was promised for a long time, but the Fidesz government didn’t have the courage to do it. They had 14 years to launch these projects,” says Magyar, “but they didn’t do anything.” Magyar’s video tour of the poor conditions of the country’s hospitals, schools and communities became so popular with voters that his party, named Tisza, began converting Fidesz voters tired of Orbán’s politics and corruption.

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MAGYAR: (non-English language spoken).

SCHMITZ: At a rally this week, Magyar told supporters, “This country is meant for so much more than those in power ruining it, stealing from it, and turning it into the poorest, most corrupt country in Europe.”

ZSUZSANNA SZELENYI: The Magyars don’t care. He doesn’t want to seem decent and polite.

SCHMITZ: Zsuzsanna Szelenyi is a former Fidesz politician who is the author of “Tainted Democracy: Viktor Orbán And The Subversion Of Hungary.” According to her, Magyar is the equivalent of a political whistleblower, an exile from Orbán’s inner circle who highlights the prime minister’s corruption.

SZELENYI: He knows how to fight a fighter, like a street fighter, but he doesn’t do it the way Orbán does because Orbán uses an entire state apparatus, money, people, institutions, every possible resource. He has so much power in Hungary.

SCHMITZ: That power is directed at targets like Ukraine, liberal ideology and the European Union, which has frozen funding to Hungary since 2022 due to the Orbán government’s backsliding on democracy.

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ORBÁN: (non-English language spoken).

SCHMITZ: In a recent speech, Orbán criticized the EU for maintaining a constant state of war in neighboring Ukraine. He has also criticized the EU for spreading what he calls LGBTQ ideology and for its liberal values. But a recent poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows that 77% of Hungarian voters surveyed actually support their country’s membership in the EU.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).

SCHMITZ: To get a sense of how Hungarian voters outside of more liberal Budapest feel, we drive an hour east of the capital to Bag, a village with a large population of Roma, an ethnic minority that faces widespread discrimination.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (language other than English spoken)

SCHMITZ: The Roma live on the outskirts of town in rows of cinder block houses along a dirt road lined with garbage. But our arrival arouses looks of disapproval. No one here wants to talk to a journalist. One man says he’ll do it for a few dollars.

No, we cannot pay for an interview. No, we cannot pay for an interview.

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SCHMITZ: In the city center, Jozsef Toth tells us that the neighborhood we have just visited is dangerous. Despite this, he says, Orbán’s Fidesz party helps everyone here.

JOZSEF TOTH: (Non-English language spoken).

SCHMITZ: “Orbán gave the population an additional pension. Without it, he said, I would not be able to provide for my family. » When I ask him about Bag’s economy under the Orbán government, he replies that it is better than ever. But his compatriot Sandor Lakatos says the economy has deteriorated significantly under Orbán.

SANDOR LAKATOS: (Non-English language spoken).

SCHMITZ: “This is the first election where I will not vote for Orbán’s Fidesz party,” he says. “Last year I found out how corrupt they were and how much money they stole.”

LAKATOS: (non-English language spoken).

SCHMITZ: Lakatos says that in previous elections, the Fidesz party sent representatives from Budapest to his village to distribute sacks of potatoes and the equivalent of $30 each to the Roma in that village in exchange for votes for Fidesz. “That’s a lot of money for the Roma,” he told me. “But my people,” he says, “are selling their own future and that of their own children by taking this money. And that is why, in this election,” says Lakatos, “it is time for change.”

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